Business Andrew Gioannetti 2 Hrs Ago New branch managers Wayne Griffith, left, and Marc Aanensen, discuss sales targets and performances indicators with Jacinto Martinez, VP of sales. – Photo courtesy Sagicor INSURANCE giant Sagicor has bolstered its operations in TT, opening two new branches and appointing experienced managers to lead them. In a release, Sagicor said this latest expansion increases the company’s local branch network to six. Industry veterans Marc Aanensen and Wayne Griffith will helm the new branches at Sagicor’s Queens’ Park, Port of Spain office. Aanensen, with 21 years of financial sector experience, has worked with Sagicor since 2003. His most recent role as agency manager prepared him for this leadership position, where he will guide the newly established Aanensen Branch, the release said. > Griffith joined Sagicor in 2009 and boasts over two decades of industry experience. Known for his leadership and performance, Griffith rose to the...

Editorial Newsday 4 Hrs Ago Ravi Ragbir AP Photo – BEFORE Martin Luther King Jr, before Malcolm X, before Black Power, there was Marcus Garvey. If the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice, then Joe Biden’s posthumous pardon of Mr Garvey on January 19 goes some way towards righting a wrong perpetuated against a true civil rights pioneer. None other than Dr King deemed him the first person, on a mass scale and level, to give people of African descent a sense of dignity and destiny. Today, the march towards equality might seem more fraught than ever, and Mr Garvey a figure from the past, but his pardon still matters. In fact, it is more relevant than ever, as is the pardon Mr Biden also granted to Trinidad-born Ravi Ragbir. Born on August 17, 1887, in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica, Mr Garvey’s is a story of migration, working-class...

News Stephon Nicholas An Hour Ago Tobago’s national bird, the cocrico – TOBAGO Business Chamber chairman Martin George has expressed grave disappointment with the updated version of the coat of arms, which was passed recently in the House of Representatives. In a video released to the media on January 20, George said he had no issue with the steelpan replacing the three ships used by explorer Christopher Columbus, however, he felt the cocrico, one of the two national birds, should have also been removed. George said if changes are being made, then all necessary amendments should happen now. “There is absolutely no need to keep this destructive pest on our coat of arms. There is no redeeming feature to this creature,” he said. “We of the Tobago Business Chamber wish to express our great disappointment that our Prime Minister, who is from Tobago, did not see it fit to also...

Editorial Newsday 2 Hrs Ago Kern “Trinidad Killa” Joseph – Trinidad Killa (Kern Joseph) faced a firestorm of public opinion and a legal challenge over his use of a music bed or “riddim” created by Full Blown Entertainment. On January 16, he announced he would recreate the song, Eskimo, on new music. “Riding a riddim,” using a produced music bed to build a new song with its interpretive elements, has been a part of Carnival ever since soca moved to digital production. Many popular soca hits were crafted on top of a riddim, some alongside as many as five other interpretations. Bunji Garlin’s 2023 Road March Hard Fete was built on the Mad Opera Riddim from the US Virgin Islands. > Bunji Garlin, Machel Montano, and Skinny Fabulous’s 2019 hit Famalay evolved from a Dominican bouyon riddim created by Krishna Lawrence. The songs on a riddim are usually released as...

News Melissa Doughty 10 Minutes Ago A bass man from Alpha Pan Pioneers plays during the band’s performance of Sweet Soca Man, during the Panorama national small-band semifinals, at Victoria Square, Port of Spain on January 18. – Photo by Angelo Marcelle Pan Trinbago president Beverley Ramsey-Moore said Saturday’s small-band conventional semifinals was one of the largest the organisation had seen in recent years. Ramsey-Moore said apart from all 400 printed tickets being sold, there were large crowds gathered on the street along the path to Victoria Square, Port of Spain, where the event was held. The Ramsey-Moore administration has been focused on community building, and, to its president, this was an acknowledgement that the work was bearing fruit. The unofficial results were announced on January 18, shortly after the event, and the Tobago band T&TEC New East Side Dimension, the defending champions, once again topped the semifinal round, playing...

News Joey Bartlett 4 Hrs Ago – File photo A woman was shot by a stray bullet during a high-speed chase and shootout between police and car thieves along the Beetham Highway shortly after 5.30 pm on January 18. Initial reports said police were alerted about a stolen vehicle, which was taken from Bon Air, Arouca by armed men. Officers on patrol spotted the vehicle as it exited the Maritime Flyover, Barataria and gave chase. Both vehicles were driving on the shoulder of the eastbound lanes of Beetham Highway when the bandits allegedly fired at the officers, who returned fire, police said. During the exchange, the woman believed to be a resident of Beetham, was shot. > Newsday contacted several senior police officers, who were either unaware of the shooting or confirmed they were on their way to the scene.

Editorial Newsday 10 Hrs Ago Stuart Young – STUART YOUNG, 49, is not yet prime minister but already he is lecturing the media. Speaking at a PNM event on January 15, Mr Young told reporters, “At no point in time in the last ten years and even before that, can the media honestly and truly say that anyone in any position on the PNM – especially here at Balisier House, led by our prime minister and political leader – has ever provided misinformation to the media.” Notice the multifaceted nature of this astonishing assertion. Embedded within it are key qualifiers like “on,” “honestly” and “truly.” Doing a lot of work, too, is the idea of “misinformation” – falsities done innocently or maliciously – being supplied specifically “to the media,” as opposed to matters disclosed at events covered by reporters. The sentence reminds us of what lawyers and politicians do: both...

Commentary Dara Healy 8 Minutes Ago – Dara Healy “I heard a tap on the glass…I could see the barrel of the gun close to the window. I can see the eyes of the person who was holding it…he could have fired at any moment. I screamed and to explain to you how these thoughts came together, thousands of them at the same time. What do I do? What is the mode I must get into? My conclusion was, nothing of an attempted coup, but rather a mad man with a gun having stormed Trinidad and Tobago Television…I spun around again, jumped off the seat and I could hear him saying: ‘Get that man out of there boy, get out of there!’ I’m on the floor and I said, you know what, let me go face this.” – Extract from an interview with Jones P Madeira by Michelle A Eng...

Letters to the Editor Newsday Reporter 37 Minutes Ago – Photo courtesy Pixabay THE EDITOR: The proverb “it takes a village to raise a child” seems no longer widespread. What has happened to those loving children? It also begs the question: what in our society has gone wrong? What is evident from the violence that has taken hold in TT is parents afraid of their children, and a society living in fear. Barricaded in their homes behind burglar bars and security cameras, fearful of speaking up. Not helped by the fact a solution is yet to be found to stem the escalating violence. Not that there is a straightforward one. The fact, however, is that violence, abuse and killing of women, children and crime overall are perpetrated predominantly by males. I am not a psychologist, but the supposition appears that males are experiencing significant problems fitting in in today’s world....

News Jada Loutoo 4 Hrs Ago Justice Jacqueline Wilson. – File photo THE State has been ordered to compensate two business people and their employee for their wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and assault following their detention at the St Joseph Police Station in October 2017. Hannah Ruth Bovell, Akeem Seetahal and Stephen George will each receive $70,000 in damages and an additional $15,000 in exemplary damages, plus legal costs. Justice Jacqueline Wilson made the order on January 14. The three were detained by officers from the Northern Division Task Force on the night of October 25, 2017, after an incident involving a contractual dispute with a man to whom Bovell and Seetahal had leased a Hyundai Tucson. The man also allegedly transferred ownership of the leased vehicle to his name without paying for it in full. The three alleged their detention was orchestrated by the man who was reportedly related...